Markup and Billing Rules¶

Overview¶

A billing rule applies a markup to the cloud cost a parent workspace passes down to one specific child. Use billing rules when you resell cloud spend and charge a customer more than the underlying provider cost.

A billing rule belongs to the edge between a parent and one child, not to the workspace itself. The same parent can charge different children different rates, and changing one child's rate never affects another.

Who can use this¶

You need workspace management permission on the parent workspace. MSP Root Admin can set rules anywhere in the tree. MSP Managed Workspace Manager can set rules for children of the workspaces they manage.

Before you begin¶

Decide:

Which child workspace the rate applies to.
Whether to charge a percentage markup or a flat fee.
The rate, and what the resulting effective rate will be for that customer.

Create a billing rule¶

Open the parent workspace's Billing Rules tab, or open Organization > Overview > Workspaces, select the workspace, and choose Billing Rules.
Select New billing rule.
Select the child workspace the rate applies to.
Enter a Name for the rule.
Select Markup type: Percentage or Flat fee.
Enter the rate in Markup % or Flat fee.
Optionally set Effective from.
Select Save rule.

You can also set the first rule for a new workspace during step 4 of the creation wizard.

Understand the effective rate preview¶

When you select Percentage, the form shows a live preview while you type:

Row	Meaning
Upstream	The rate already applied above this edge, if any.
This rule (new)	The rate you are entering now.
Compounded effective	The resulting total rate relative to raw cloud cost.

Markup compounds multiplicatively. A 10% upstream rate followed by a 5% rate on this edge produces a 15.5% compounded effective rate, not 15%.

This preview appears only while you are creating or editing a rule, so you can see exactly what the downstream workspace will be charged before you save.

How markup appears after saving¶

What a viewer sees day to day is deliberately narrower than the creation preview.

A parent viewing one of its children sees a single markup indicator: the rate on the edge from itself to that child.
The indicator never shows the compounded, multi-hop rate accumulated further up the tree.
A workspace viewing its own dashboard sees no markup indicator at all. A workspace never sees the rate applied to itself.

The markup indicator reads MARKUP — rate applied to this workspace and displays the parent workspace, the edge rate, and the child workspace.

This keeps each customer's view limited to what their direct provider charges them, and never exposes what anyone further up the chain charges.

Where markup appears in cost data¶

Markup is applied when cost is read, not when billing data is ingested. A workspace's dashboard, Cost Explorer, and exports show the marked-up cost that workspace is charged. The cost-by-service breakdown uses the same visible edge rate as the header indicator.

Expected result¶

The billing rule appears in the parent's Billing Rules tab with its rate and status. The child workspace's cost figures reflect the marked-up amount, and the child sees no indication that a markup was applied.

Notes and limitations¶

Billing rules apply to direct parent-child edges only. You cannot set a rule that skips a level.
A rule for one child never supersedes a rule for a sibling.
Leaving a workspace without a billing rule makes the relationship pass-through at 0%.
Historical re-rating is not supported. Changing a rate affects how cost is presented from that point forward.

Troubleshooting¶

If New billing rule is missing, confirm your role includes workspace management permission on the parent workspace.

If a markup indicator does not appear where you expect one, confirm you are viewing a child workspace rather than your own. A workspace never displays the markup applied to itself.